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Marcus Martins was 19 years old in June 1978. He had no expectation of serving a mission because of the priesthood restriction that precluded him from doing so. But all of that changed on June 8th of that year when a friend in Utah called to tell the Martins family the amazing news that the Church had announced a revelation extending the priesthood to all worthy male members ages 12 and older, regardless of race or color. Just months later, Martins, who had been engaged to be married at the time of the revelation, entered the year-old Brazil Missionary Training Center and became the first Black missionary to serve after the announced revelation.
Now for a bit of background, I listen to a lot of podcasts, but the First Vision podcast is the only podcast I’ve ever listened to more than once. When the host, Spencer McBride, came to the office for an interview for our podcast
, I felt like I was meeting a celebrity who completely changed my understanding of a transformative event in Church history.
So when I got a notification of a new podcast mini-series coming from the Joseph Smith Papers, to say I was excited would be an understatement. I was instantly enthralled with the topic
I’ve since listened to all six episodes in the mini-series, and once again I learned so much from McBride and the historians featured on the podcast. At the beginning of the first episode, McBride starts by talking about the year 1829: